There exist a variety of non-electric musical instruments that may be used in a performance to create certain desired sounds by musicians manipulating such instruments. The following is a link to a Wikipedia webpage that is incorporated herein by reference that describes a variety of known hand percussion instruments: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_percussion). As stated at this webpage, “Hand percussion is a term used to indicate a percussion instrument of any type from any culture that is held in the hand. They can be made from wood, metal or plastic and are usually either shaken, scraped or tapped with fingers or a stick. It is a useful category in terms of a large percussion orchestra in that it identifies all instruments that are not drums or pitched percussion such as marimba and xylophone.” The article further states “A shaker (percussion) is any instrument that makes a noise when shaken. Historically they were naturally occurring items such as seed pods. A caxixi is a basketwork shaker with a gourd base. Gourds are used all over the world and covered with a net with shells or seeds to create an instrument such as the shekere. Modern shakers are often cylinders made from metal wood or plastic containing small hard items such as seeds, stones, or plastic—an example is the Egg Shaker. There is another category of shaken instrument using jingles, little discs of metal which tap together when shaken. Tambourines fall into this category.” In addition, scrapers are a type of instrument that may be “a wood, metal or plastic instrument which has ridges on its body. Often known as Guiro, rhythms are created by running a thin stick up and down the ridges at different speeds. Gourds or bamboo have traditionally been used as they have a resonant hollow body and can easily be cut with ridges. A common type from Asia is a carved wooden frog which has ridges cut on its back and its mouth and belly hollowed out.” In addition there are devices that may be struck together or with a stich or mallet or by hand to create sounds, e.g., triangle, cow bell, tapping or clapping sticks, tamborim and tambourine.
One problem is that the purely mechanical sound generated by such devices are hard to capture for recording or amplification. While microphones and the like are useful in recording and capturing generated sound for amplification, such devices are separate from the instrument itself and present difficulties in sampling and mixing the sounds with sounds generated by other instruments used by other musicians. Such difficulties are particular problematic in the context of live performances.
The '570 application incorporated herein by reference discloses a novel drum trigger device that includes a piezoelectric triggering component that transduces the mechanical energy associated with a drum strike into an electronic signal. The electronic signal is then delivered to a module designed to process the received electronic signal into a sound associated with the particular instrument associated with the particular trigger generating the signal, e.g., snare drum, tom drum, kick drum, or cymbal/hi-hat.
The function and operation of piezoelectric transducers and the piezoelectric effect is well known in the art. A description of the functioning of a piezoelectric transducer can be found in the article Piezoelectric Transducers, NDT Resource Center, https://www.nde-ed.org/EducationResources/CommunityCollege/Ultrasonics/EquipmentTrans/piezotransducers.htm, accessed Jan. 5, 2016, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. Additional information on piezoelectric transducers can be found in the article What's a Transducer?, APC International, LTD, https://www.americanpiezo.com/piezo-theory/whats-a-transducer.html, accessed Jan. 5, 2016, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety. Detail on the mechanics and function of piezoelectric transducers can be found in the article Introduction to Piezo Transducers, Piezo Systems, Inc., http://www.piezo.com/tech2intropiezotrans.html, accessed Jan. 5, 2016, which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.
All extrinsic materials discussed herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety. Where a definition or use of a term in an incorporated reference is inconsistent or contrary to the definition of that term provided herein, the definition of that term provided herein applies and the definition of that term in the reference does not apply.
Thus, there is a need for electronic handheld percussion instruments capable of generating electronic signals for processing by a processor-based module to generate musical sounds adapted to replicate non-electronic traditional hand percussion and other handheld instruments.